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The Best Thing You Can Do Is To Unplug From Technology

Back in January I made a simple decision for my own sanity-I unplugged from Facebook and Twitter. I had become worn out from the feeling that I was bombarded with news and updates of negativity. I had grown tired of getting roped in to conversations about politics that led to arguments which resulted in adding to my stress level. Because of the inundation of negativity I stopped using social media completely.

I didn’t have a plan, but figured I would eventually use Facebook like I use salt; a little dab here, another pinch there. What I found after a while was that I didn’t miss it at all and my quality of life increased.

Next on my list was unplugging from news. I had grown tired of wrestling with the dilemma of trust. I didn’t know which news sources were reporting “news” accurately (I surmised none of them) therefore I decided to eliminate them all.

I went cold turkey on eliminating social media and news for over 8 weeks and then added in infrequent use since the end of March.

I don’t add many pictures to Facebook. I don’t comment a lot. I don’t follow people. I unfollowed almost every page to clean up my feed so that I only get posts from people I care about.

So what are my impressions and thoughts after nearly 4 months of minimal social media and even less news? My quality of life has skyrocketed! I no longer feel overwhelmed. I no longer view the world as negatively as I had before. I am paying more attention to the real world around me. I spend less time looking at my device when I’m out in public.

In short, I feel happier and less stressed.

My belief is that so much information creates a false impression. The inundation of information makes people believe that crime and doom are waiting on every corner. The negative news reporting makes us feel as though there is no good in the world. News sources report death, destruction, corruption and crime so powerfully that it creates in us a false perception when the truth is that crime per capita in the U.S. is at a 40-year low according to the FBI data crimes department.

Now that I am paying attention to the real world I am noticing that there are a lot of good people in the world. Sure you see some inconsiderate individuals also, but for the most part people are decent. For the most part people are normal.

I highly recommend you unplug completely for a while and allow your mind to reset. I believe you will find your stress level will go down and your mental quality of life will increase.

9 thoughts on “The Best Thing You Can Do Is To Unplug From Technology”

Thank you so much for this post. I completely agree with you. Social media is doing more harm than good to people and it’s only because most of us don’t know the right way to use it. After I finished college I unfollowed almost all my friends because some of them got great jobs and some went to Europe for higher education right after they graduated and I knew seeing their happy pictures on fb would make me feel depressed and a very negative person. So instead of following them I followed some book reading groups where I get some amazing recommendations of what books to read. I’ve read more books in just a few months this year than I have for the past 20 years. Now I’ve found a way to use fb to my advantage and I’ve never felt this positive about life before. I feel more confident about myself and most importantly, I’m at peace with myself 🙂

Everyone on FB is putting their best face forward. Smiling. Eating great meals. Awesome vacations. What they don’t show the world is all the hardship. So you are better off not comparing your behind-the-scenes to other people’s highlight reel.

I love this! I stopped watching the news YEARS ago, and have felt so much better since. We’re all responsible for our own quality of life, and a big portion of that is what we allow in our space. Good for you for knowing what needed to be done to improve yours! Great advice! Xx

I think this is a very sane approach. I unplug from news but I am still on FB but not for news fake or otherwise. I believe we have now a situation where we are inundated with news; news of disasters, terrorism, mass shootings, politicians behaving erratically , news from the other side of the world, news from down the street . It is to much for our brains. I believe we have not evolved far enough be able to deal with this massive amount of frequently disturbing and negative “news”. So turning at least some of it off is a very sanity saving idea.